Education issues

I have come to discover that I have some serious issues with the current philosophy of education in Arkansas.
Recently, I happened to be present at a venue in which some local high school students were asked a series of general knowledge questions in a competitive setting I’ll be the first to admit that some of the questions were difficult and some were downright obscure. But what upset me was that the students, some of the brightest in the school, had not a clue, not only about specific questions, but also about some of the question topics. These included literature, history, mathematics, music, philosophy, civics, physical science, physics, chemistry and other areas of what used to be regarded as part of a well-rounded education.
When I dared to ask what they were studying in school, I didn’t get a straight answer, not that I expected one from a crowd of teenagers. What was apparent was that they weren’t studying much of anything regarding the questions they were being asked. It was equally apparent they didn’t attach very much importance to the fact that they didn’t have the information required.
Allow me to quote a few examples, gentle readers.
Can you give the full names of the organizations identified by the following acronyms?
OSHA, FDIC, NATO, SPCA.
The answers are Office of Safety and Health Administration, Federal Deposit Insurance corporation, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, all of which are long established and, I thought, well known groups.
Although some of the students gave some indication of having heard the acronyms before, none of them knew what they stand for.
What is the name of the fictional detective created by Edgar Allen Poe for the stories Murders in the Rue Morgue and the Purloined Letter?
Fans of detective fiction should recognize the name C. Auguste Dupin. What was interesting to me was that so few of the students even had the light of recognition in their eyes at the mention of the name Edgar Allen Poe.
Then there was one question they jumped all over. What is the name of the outer layer of the sun’s surface, which shares a name with a popular brand of Mexican beer?
Most of them knew “Corona.” Does that tell you anything about where students’ values and experiences are?
For the most part, I don’t fault the students for not having this information on the tips of their tongues. Like all young, inexperienced creatures, they place value on what they see valued in the lives of the people they respect. It was very obvious that they have not seen much value placed on what used to be considered a well-rounded liberal arts education. Where I hold the students at fault is when they found they suffered from ignorance in a number of areas, they did not seem either disappointed or particularly concerned.
When I say they suffered from ignorance, I should hasten to explain that this is not a quality judgement on my part. Ignorance is merely the lack of information and is very correctable. We are all ignorant is some ways.
To not care that one is ignorant is stupid. There is no excuse for stupidity. We’ve already got all the paper weights we need.
Parents need to understand that it isn’t the school system’s responsibility to instill in their children a respect and love for knowledge for its own sake. That’s Mom and Dad’s job. Not every scrap of information that makes life worth living is directly connected to earning money, as important as that may be.
As far as the state Department of Education is concerned, all the emphasis is on standardized tests. The standard for educational excellence, set by the composition of these tests, is highly suspect. As is the whole educational philosophy that maintains the sanctity of standardized testing. Seems the education establishment wants to crank out “Spam kids.” Just throw all the meat into one end of an education machine, grind it up, and produce uniform, easily packaged, easily evaluated people on the other end.
Even the Japanese are giving up on that idea. They discovered that it discourages individuality, creativity and deductive reasoning. Fancy that, and it only took them 40 years to figure that out.
In my humble opinion, gentle readers, what the education hierarchy needs to keep in mind is that they are in the business of educating people, no two of whom are exactly alike. This should be their primary focus, instead of expending their resources in codifying and constantly seeking to justify the educational system itself.
Fact is, the square root of 36 has always been 6 and always will be. William Shakespeare hasn’t written a new play in 400 years, so I don’t think any more are forthcoming. Last time I looked, the earth was still more or less a sphere with operational gravity and mostly covered by water. Michaelangelo hasn’t held a one man sculpture show in quite a while so we’re pretty safe in figuring he’s done all he’s gonna do. The fundamental structure of a representative democracy hasn’t changed much since the ancient Greeks came up with the idea. We haven’t even changed our own Constitution in a month of Sundays.
Why can’t we just give our kids a good solid foundation to build on once they decide what kind of structure they want to build? They need to know where they came from and where they are in order to make an informed decision about where they want to go.
And don’t get the idea that I’m against modernizing education. I’m not. Computers make wonderful tools, but they are just tools, they are not the be-all and end-all. I find it very convenient to know how to work with a computer. I have no desire to work for one.